He stars as a low-key, conscientious border patrol officer who wants to do right by everyone (including his restless wife and shifty coworkers), but mostly aims to do his job and be left alone. His wife (Valerie Perrine) wants a pool and fancy living, while his patrol cohorts (Harvey Keitel and Warren Oates) are making extra money on the sly doing some smuggling across borders. The guilt of his job, ensuring no illegal Mexicans are let in the states, begins to eat away at him as he sees the pain and suffering endured by the women and children…

Plot pieces are clumsily shuffled about, the cinematography is embarrassingly poor (or perhaps HBOGO could only get a grainy VHS dub), and several hollow characters seemingly exist solely to move the story along.

Does contain a few surprising and gruesome demises during the brief outbursts of violence, but as a whole is too awkward and manipulative.

The soundtrack is so much at odds with what I expected from just looking at the cover (I try to not know too much about a film before viewing). It's not that the music is bad, not at all, but it seems a bit off, and is not helped at all with how it is edited.

Jack Nicholson is great as the border policeman growing disillusioned with pretty much everything; his wife (Valerie Perrine is super annoying) and homelife, his job, his colleagues and systematic corruption, the predicament and treatment of Mexicans etc etc. He tries to play along, after all he's new in town, but after taking special interest in one young Mexican girl (Elpidia Carillo, 21 at the…

The Border is exactly what you get when Tony Richardson directs a noir genre movie set on the US-Mexico border. Sheer perfection for somebody like me who loves Richardson's kitchen sink realism and the gritty noir films of America in the 1970s.

Jack Nicholson is superb in what is often cited as his most understated performance, opposite Harvey Keitel who himself puts in great performance. I was looking forward to the supporting role of Warren Oates but he was largely wasted in a near pointless role in this film. You'd never expect a film starring Nicholson, Keitel and Oates to be criticised for it's subtlety but that is essentially most viewer's major issue with this one.

Great acting by Nicholson and Keitel but I can understand why this is largely forgotten today, Very little about it is memorable just a day after viewing. The ending is real bad an out of nowhere car chase bonanza that is badly edited and confusing. Corny final shot that thinks its profound. Ry Cooder's score is typically great.

There is a valiant attempt made here, by director Tony Richardson and three screenwriters that include Walon Green, to tell a complex, layered, character driven story about something important.

Some of this even continues to have a certain level of resonance, as it deals with illegals desperate to cross over into the promised land of the US of A, and how they live in fear of "La Migra."

The hero of the story is Jack Nicholson. As the straight arrow cop who transfers to El Paso. He's his usual self. It's fine. And so a tale is weaved that revolves around his trying to balance life at home with his materialistic and shrill wife played to the hilt by Valerie…

In this solid, impressive muckraking movie directed by Tony Richardson and filmed largely on location in El Paso, Texas, Jack Nicholson plays a U.S. border patrolman whose job it is to shove Mexicans back to their side of the Rio Grande. The patrolman hates his work; it fills him with disgust, because most of the patrolmen are in cahoots with the American businesses that hire wetbacks, and the patrolmen make their money-their big money-by closing their eyes to vans full of workers earmarked for their business partners. It's an ugly life-persecuting enough Mexicans to keep the government bureaus happy while functioning as slave dealers. Working from a script by Deric Washburn, Walon Green, and David Freeman, and with the cinematographers…

He stars as a low-key, conscientious border patrol officer who wants to do right by everyone (including his restless wife and shifty coworkers), but mostly aims to do his job and be left alone. His wife (Valerie Perrine) wants a pool and fancy living, while his patrol cohorts (Harvey Keitel and Warren Oates) are making extra money on the sly doing some smuggling across borders. The guilt of his job, ensuring no illegal Mexicans are let in the states, begins to eat away at him as he sees the pain and suffering endured by the women and children…

Great acting by Nicholson and Keitel but I can understand why this is largely forgotten today, Very little about it is memorable just a day after viewing. The ending is real bad an out of nowhere car chase bonanza that is badly edited and confusing. Corny final shot that thinks its profound. Ry Cooder's score is typically great.